Some considerations regarding the intonation in Cuba: Differences between the west and the east of the Island

Abstract

Due to its geographical position, Cuba has been the center of various migratory processes, some voluntary and others forced, such as slavery and Haitian migrations to eastern Cuba. The consequences of these processes (economic, cultural, social, and even political) have had a profound impact on the configuration of the Cuban variant of Spanish. This work is based on the premise that these cultures have contributed to the development of linguistic differences in the Cuban dialect. In this research, we are interested in differences in intonation between the West and the East. The objective is to explore what kind of nuclear configuration could characterize the declarative utterances of this variant of Spanish and determine whether, in fact, there are differences between the utterances produced by speakers from the west and east of the Island. As the research is purely exploratory, it was decided to work with six participants: six female speakers, three from each region of the country, namely the west and east. The participants were recorded while producing declarative statements to compare the intonation patterns between speakers from both regions of the country. These recordings were then analyzed using Pratt software version 6.1.4. The results obtained are consistent with findings contained in previous studies on Caribbean and Cuban Spanish. However, it was also determined that there are differences in the frequency of occurrence of certain nuclear configurations. Based on these results and given the exploratory nature of this research, it is recommended to conduct a study with a larger sample size.